Spark ignition internal combustion engines, in particular direct injection internal combustion engines, are operated in different operating modes. These operating modes differ in the mixture formation, for example, and thus in the application strategy and in software functions for the fuel injection system, the air system and/or the ignition system. The application data for the operating mode-specific functions are stored in different setpoint value characteristic map structures. The change to a certain operating mode depends on the operating point of the internal combustion engine and/or the present state of the drive train and/or of the motor vehicle and/or on environmental conditions.
In modern direct injection internal combustion engines, in particular in diesel internal combustion engines, exhaust after-treatment systems are additionally used, or new combustion methods for lowering emissions are provided. A so-called operating mode coordinator (state machine) has been adapted to such an exhaust after-treatment, different application strategies and operating mode-specific software functions being used, which are switched as a function of the operating state of the internal combustion engine and/or as a function of the environmental conditions.
In spark ignition internal combustion engines, an aforementioned operating mode coordinator has been used to select fuel-efficient operating modes, and in the case of direct injection internal combustion engines including a particulate filter, it has also been used to achieve optimal regeneration of the particulate filter. Compared to an operating mode “low fuel consumption,” for example, the operating mode “regeneration of the particulate filter” in many cases has a considerably higher priority.
An aforementioned operating mode coordinator is described in German Patent Application No. DE 10 2004 041 217 A1. There, the operating mode coordinator processes a piece of priority information, in addition to the request for an operating mode. The processing sequence of the request is not established, but is variable due to the additional priority information. Before the request is processed within the operating mode coordinator, the coordinator sorts the requests according to their priority, which may be predefined.
Furthermore, an operating mode coordinator operating according to the principle of negative exclusion logic is described in German Patent Application No. DE 10 2005 018 270 A1, which selects from the operating mode requests those requests having the highest priority which are not prohibited by other operating mode requests. This allows an operating mode coordination which is independent of the particular configuration of the motor vehicle and of the exhaust after-treatment.